


Compromise

by gargoylekitty



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Family Feels, SuperCorp, Wives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 08:10:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11687577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gargoylekitty/pseuds/gargoylekitty
Summary: “Then maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Kara mutters, shoulders dropping in clear exhaustion. It wasn’t often they fought but emotions were definitely running high in this one. Without another word, Kara ducks out onto the balcony and is gone.Married fic. Starts rough but there's still fluff.





	Compromise

“Then maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Kara mutters, shoulders dropping in clear exhaustion. It wasn’t often they fought but emotions were definitely running high in this one. Without another word, Kara ducks out onto the balcony and is gone.

Lena Luthor was blindsided. She supposes she should have thought of this possibility but it had honestly never crossed her mind. Part of her wants to worry about Kara’s hasty retreat, they had promised each other to stop doing that. For Kara to stop flying off, for Lena to stop hiding behind mountains of work and closed meeting room doors, that they’d talk things through. 

She knows Kara will be back, even as she fiddles with the ring around her finger, but what then? Could she compromise on this? She admits there were a lot of factors, including one very big one that she hadn’t really considered. In her defense, even with the life they’d built together, they came from very different families and this was definitely a family matter.

It’s not that the subject was new to them, they’d talked a lot about family over the years. Where they had come from, what they had lost and, most importantly, what they had gained. They both agreed they wanted to add to that, to have a household full of kids that they’d give all the love in the world. Though that was the problem. That was where this fight began. They both knew they wanted kids but they never really got into the “how?”

Lena wanted to adopt. She had never seen a future where she was pregnant, wearing maternity clothes and waddling around with a life growing inside her. Even when she recognized her attraction to other women, the whole ordeal of… treatments and having a pregnant spouse seemed too much for her. Add in an alien spouse with a penchant for heroics and adoption definitely seemed the right choice. Besides, why spend and stress so much to bring another child into the world when there were plenty who deserved a loving home? Who deserved a better family than she had been dealt. A family she’d hoped to give them.

And Kara… Kara wasn’t against adopting. What surprised Lena, what had pushed things toward the edge, was how much she had planned on having a kid with Lena. A child who was biologically both of theirs. Apparently alien technology was much further along in terms of allowing two women to conceive a child together than Lena anticipated. Neither would even need to carry it to term if they didn’t want to go through a pregnancy. Kara had mentioned how she was “born” before, but it was never close enough to their talks of kids for Lena to make the connection. To consider the option.

But then there were the names. While Lena didn’t feel the weight of the Luthor name like she used to, she had no real desire to bring more into this world. What she failed to consider wasn’t just Kara’s disagreement, but how Kara’s name factored in. The House of El. Kara felt strongly about not letting herself be the last. Sure, Clark was also an El though Lena wasn’t close enough to him and Lois to know if children were in their future and knew bringing it up wouldn’t help. Especially when, as they talked, it became clear that Kara’s concern wasn’t just about carrying on the family line but for the legacy of a planet that no longer existed.

“I thought Krypton would die with me,” Kara had started slowly, breaking the silence that had fallen over them when they realized they weren’t as much on the same page as they had thought. “But then I saw what technology had reached Earth and realized there could still be a way for me, us, to have a child. Kal was raised human but with our kids I could raise them to know Krypton. To pass on the language, culture, religion, everything. Our children could keep it alive and then their children and…”

As Kara continued to talk, Lena tried to understand. She knew what this meant to Kara, but the talk of legacy, of placing the burden of carrying on not just a name but the memory of an entire planet, one they would never even know, on the shoulders of a child reminded her too much of her own upbringing. Of being told what is expected of a Luthor. Of what it means to be a Luthor. Of the long line that she was now expected to be a part of whether she liked it or not. At one time, she would have stayed silent, maybe even given in. She hadn’t ever considered that there might be alternatives available for having a child of their own but all she saw now was that child, their child, taking on the burden that she knew Kara herself struggled with without even understanding it the way Kara did.

“What if they don’t?” Lena cut in, ignoring that she’d missed a lot of what Kara had said, the blonde too caught up in trying to express what this meant to her to notice her wife’s withdrawal from the conversation. At a questioning look, Lena elaborates. “What if they don’t care about a planet they never knew?”

The moment the words are out, she cringes. It wasn’t the best way to voice her concerns, she didn’t mean to dismiss something she knew was so important to Kara, but it was out there. Things only went downhill from there.

Even now, avoiding staring at the balcony as though her wife would step through the glass doors at any moment, Lena feels her concerns were valid. A child of a Super and a Luthor would have enough on their plate without Krypton. Sure, she expected Kara to share stories about the planet, where she was from, with their future children. She wanted that. Cozy evenings in, cuddled together, Kara regaling them with tales of her youth among the stars. Stories that she’d told Lena countless times already. Only now, with Kara’s own words buzzing in her ears, she could only feel the weight of expectation that had been set on her shoulders at such a young age. 

She knew her own experiences were coloring her perception and that Kara wasn’t like Lillian or any of the Luthors for that matter. But she remembers the crushing feeling when she realized she was one of them. Not just by adoption, but blood. That all the time she’d held to the idea that she could be free of them, especially once Lex was gone, only to realize that she never had a chance.

Lena sighs, finally allowing herself a glance at the balcony, eyes widening when she makes out the shape of her wife sitting on the banister through the curtains. Her back was to the door and legs dangling off the ledge like she’d do when she, quote, “wanted the feeling of flying and being up high without the effort” despite how she made it seem truly effortless when she did soar. Lena knew it was more often when she wanted to go flying but also didn’t want to leave her alone. A compromise.

Though she knows that Kara can hear her every movement, she walks as quietly as she can to the glass doors, lingering just inside, hating that she feels uncertain if her presence would be welcomed. “You stayed.”

For a moment Kara doesn’t respond, eyes trained on the city laid out before them. It wasn’t too different from any other large American city at a glance. Yet, this is where they met. Where they fell in love. Where they committed themselves to one another. It was home. 

“I didn’t,” she admits, voice tinged with guilt, head dropping to look down at her fidgeting hands in her lap. “I got to the park and then realized what I’d done… I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about what I was doing, I was so mad… Upset? Disappointed, maybe? I… Do you just not want to have kids with me. Our kids? I know you have no problems with aliens, you married me, but maybe kids would be too much, too different. I…”

“No,” Lena says softly, though it’s enough to make Kara stop, her hands freezing once again as she looks back to the city. “I wouldn’t have a problem with our kids being part alien… Or even all alien.”

She knows she has her wife’s full attention, even without the confirmation of seeing her face.

“I was hoping we could look into the adoption programs run through the alien refugee centers. Maggie was telling me about how there are kids who show up here, separated from their families or without families and nowhere to go. The city has tried to help, but it’s harder for them to find someone willing to take them in, even if the public view of aliens has improved a lot over the past few years.”

She doesn’t mention that she’d done more than just talk to Maggie about it. About how she’d actually gone and met with the program supervisors, wanting to know more before bringing it up to Kara. How she’d seen the kids there, how they struggled to deal with being not only without a family, but on a planet far from their own. How it made Lena think of all the stories Kara and Alex had told of when Kara first arrived, how hard it was even if things turned out alright in the end. 

“I didn’t know,” Kara sighs, still not looking back at Lena though losing some of the tension in her shoulders. As if it were the cue she’d been waiting for, Lena finally steps outside, moving to stand beside her wife. Not touching though close enough to reach out.

“And I didn’t know that there was a way for us to have a child together,” Lena admits. “Or that it was something you wanted and clearly thought a lot about.” 

Though she can see Kara shift out of the corner of her eye and yearns to turn and face her, there’s more she feels the need to address first. 

“I didn’t mean to make it sound like Krypton isn’t important,” she had to make this clear. “In truth, Krypton has come to mean a lot to me. Same with the House of El. Your birthplace. Your birth family. They’re truly important to me. Both because they’re important to you and because without them I wouldn’t have you.”

Finally, she turns, fully aware that Kara’s gaze was no longer on the city but on her. Kara opens her arms and though it still sometimes terrifies her to have only that embrace to keep her from falling, she moves into Kara’s lap, musing how dangerous a seat it’d be if they were both human. Kara was right. It almost felt like hovering over the city. The way it stretched out before them, the barrier ignored.

“I hate when we fight,” Kara whispers, nuzzling Lena’s neck before resting her chin on her shoulder. Lena tilts her head, leaning it against Kara’s, and hums her agreement. “We’ve talked about kids. How did this never come up?”

“Probably because you get so excited about all the cute Supergirl outfits they have for kids now and how you want to buy them all,” Lena muses, the corners of her lips curling up at the thought. She’d be lying if she didn’t have the same thought, even if she felt the need to poke fun at her wife’s behavior. “Or how with kids we’d absolutely need to get a dog too.” 

“For protection,” Kara goes with her latest argument. “It’d scare off bad guys and monsters.”

“Like a Supermom wouldn’t be enough?” Lena laughs. 

“Well, you always just start talking about schools and moving because ‘an apartment with a balcony this high up isn’t safe for kids, Kara!’” She tries, and fails, to mimic the tone her wife uses when they’d talked about it in the past.

“It isn’t,” Lena insists, even as she swings her legs a bit, perched in Kara’s lap on the banister of the balcony in question.

Kara laughs, tightening her grip on the woman in front of her, and together they fall into a thoughtful silence. Was it weird that this never came up? Was it a bad sign that it had gotten so heated? Was there a solution?

“Maybe…” Kara starts, not missing how Lena startles at the word, clearly in deep thought herself. “I wouldn’t mind looking at those adoption programs. If you still want to…”

“I do,” Lena replies, turning as much as she can to look her wife in the face. “And I wouldn’t mind looking at what technology has reached here and if it’d work for us. If you still wanted a child with me…”

“I do.” Kara echoes the reply and they can’t help but think back on the past times they’d said those words to each other, the different though still life altering circumstances. “I think part of the problem here is that we were both acting like we only have one option.”

Lena considers the words before nodding in agreement. “We did always say we wanted more than one.”

“I’m thinking at least twenty-five,” Kara smirks, falling back into familiar territory, the number higher every time it was brought it up. 

“Kara…” Lena groans though her smile gives away her amusement.

“Okay, okay... Twenty-three,” Kara huffs before swinging them around and moving to stand on the balcony, not letting go of Lena just yet.

“Really?” Lena laughs, turning and burying her face in her wife’s shoulder.

“Fine!” Kara throws her hands up as though she was making some great sacrifice. “Twenty. Final offer.”

Lena pulls back enough to look her wife in the face, rolling her eyes before moving in to give her a kiss. 

“We’ll see…” she murmurs, her lips brushing Kara’s before stepping back to head inside.

“Lenaaaaaa…” Kara pouts, whining her wife’s name as she follows. “That’s what you always say.”

Lena stops at the doorway and turns back, putting her arms around Kara’s waist. “How about we just start with one and see where it goes.”

Kara gives an overly dramatic sigh but nods as she melts into her wife’s embrace.

“Now,” Lena’s eyes narrow at that tone though she tries to keep her face neutral, knowing what’s coming next. “What about the dog?”

“Kara…” She can’t help it. She laughs at her wife’s serious expression and kisses her again even as she launches into her well-rehearsed speech about the merits of having a four-legged companion, for the kids, of course. It’s not just that Kara wants one, though she does, but it’s absolutely for the kids.

For the moment the subject of how those kids will come into their life is shelved though not for too long because if there’s one thing that Lena is certain of it’s that building a family with Kara would be a dream come true. 

***

In the end, they adopt two young aliens, siblings, and have one more. The dogs, plural because ‘Lena, he gets so lonely when we’re gone all day!’ made them a very happy and loving family of seven. Not quite twenty but it was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Noticed a trend of them being in agreement, assuming an accident or something didn't push them into it, on having kids or adopting and got to thinking about it and then this happened. Also, for this, they keep their Luthor and Danvers names publicly for career purposes, the kids taking on Luthor-Danvers, but to family and friends they are all Zor-Els.
> 
> Also, also, I use waaaaaaay too many commas but I killed some so hopefully it's not too bad.


End file.
